Occupational health and safety news and guidance

A Wirral roofer has been prosecuted after he allowed a labourer to
use a lit gas burner on a house roof without any measures in place to
stop him being injured in a fall.

Daniel Loftus was photographed on the roof of a terraced house on
Mainwaring Road, Wallasey, approximately five metres above the ground,
while another worker held the burner to seal the roof.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Mr Loftus after a
passing inspector spotted the unsafe work on 16 November 2011, and
immediately ordered the two men to come down.

Wirral Magistrates’ Court in Birkenhead heard that there was no
scaffolding or guarding around the edge of the roof to prevent either
worker being injured in a fall. Instead they had used a ladder, resting
against the guttering, to reach the roof and then walked along it.

Daniel Loftus pleaded guilty to breaching Section 7(a) of the Health
and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 by failing to take reasonable care of
the health and safety of other people while at work. Mr. Loftus, of St David’s Road in Prenton, was fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £600 in prosecution costs on 31 May 2012.